Monday, October 12, 2009

Hippie. The word itself has many meanings depending on who’s saying it. This week, that word could probably have applied to me. I’m not sure if this is who I’ve always been, or who I might secretly want to be, or just one aspect of who I’m becoming. To be honest, I just gave it more thought writing those last four sentences than any time before.

But I did dabble in the “who am I and what am I doing here” philosophy when I went to a one-woman show at a local Portland New Age bookstore after a friend suggested I check out Vanda Mikoloski http://www.vanda.us. She’s a Metaphysical Comic who very well may be on the cusp of full force mainstream. Vanda jokes about a lot of things including her strict Roman Catholic upbringing and how, at the age of 11, she discovered she was one with everything as she tried LSD. The way she tells that story had me doubled over with laughter. But while she jokes about it, she also admits you don’t get that “sense of wholeness and then forget about it”. Perhaps that has helped fuel her quest for enlightenment. Mostly, the take away from her show is not to take life so seriously.

And I don’t. Or at least I try not to. But one thing I do try to take seriously is getting to know new and interesting people, like my friend Martin who I met randomly last spring as I was visiting Portland. Martin and his wife Sarah have lived here for more than a dozen years. They invited me on a boat ride along the Willamette River which divides Portland’s east and west side. As Martin and Sarah both said, it’s a great way to see the city. They were right.

It was also a great way to decompress from a week where I lived hippie style, trying my hand at homemade granola, dehydrating fruit, making Greek style yogurt, returning to Bikram yoga, knitting scarves and just living an overall earthy life. I think I even got little glimpses of enlightenment…so I may have gotten in touch with my inner Hippie after all. Whatever that may mean.